DUPLICITY AND DELAY

The beginning of a beautiful friendship

The delays in the publication of the Chilcot Report are a telling indictment of the duplicity of those involved in making the decision to spin a web of lies to make the case for war in 2003. The inquiry was somewhat reluctantly set up by the then New Labour Government in 2009 - the hearings were completed in 2011. 

Disputes over the publication of evidence and the right of advanced rebuttal by those included in the report then followed, including arguments over whether or not memos between the then Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President George Bush could be published or not also followed. 

No matter how much spin was spun to add weight to the reasons for the invasion, the toppling of Saddam Hussein, the costly occupation of Iraq, etc - it is impossible to get away from the idea that the then New Labour Prime Minister simply lied to the House of Commons and the rest of us. The whole wretched process is yet another very public demonstration of the abject failure of the Westminster institution to call them to account and the lengths to which the so called elite will go to to protect their tarnished reputations.